The man ostensibly in charge was Girolamo Lucchese, a.k.a. Gerry Lucas, a soldier with the Gianelli family who had served several prison terms — for rape and sodomy, molesting children, pandering, contributing to the delinquency of assorted minors. The recipient of pay beyond his lowly rank, Lucchese wore the label of a button man without complaint. He understood that it was insulation for the capo, something in the way of guaranteed security in case the lockbox should be penetrated. If and when that happened, Lucchese would be on his own, but through continued silence he could guarantee himself the best in legal talent, a continuation of his salary regardless of the outcome and a ready-made position in the Family upon release from jail. It was an offer he could scarcely have refused, since the alternative — providing testimony for the prosecution — would have meant his very painful death.
Lucchese was a man who valued pain. Infliction of it granted him the sort of sexual release that he had never found through normal channels, and he realized that pain was also educational, a useful tool for discipline. Receiving pain was something else entirely, though, and he knew that he could do a lot of time before he cracked and spilled the secrets of the Gianelli family. Hell, life would be a piece of cake compared to death the way that Gianelli's contract butchers dealt it out.
Mack Bolan knew Lucchese through his files at Justice, though the two of them had never met before tonight. Lucchese would have known Bolan by his reputation, but the Executioner would not be on his mind this evening. Having found a means of merging business with his pleasure, profiting from both, the mobster would be concentrating on his clients and their special needs. The Executioner was counting on it. The lockbox had no roving guards outside; Lucchese had decided that invisibility was preferable to an army on the street, and his exterior security was unobtrusive. Bolan's single pass was all it took to make the nondescript sedan, two passengers. The vehicle had been parked a half block down and faced the fortress warehouse, waiting for a danger signal that had not been used in three years.
The operation was protected at many levels. There were payoffs to be made at local levels, but Lucchese's customers themselves provided further insulation. Many of them crawled from under diplomatic rocks to seek their pleasures in the lockbox, representatives of European, Asian, African or Middle Eastern countries on duty in the nation's capital. Immune themselves to any charge of criminal behavior, they exerted a collective pull beyond their individual capacity, ensuring that authorities along the waterfront remained myopic, deaf and dumb.
The Executioner knew of the Lucchese-Gianelli alliance, and knew that it would never stand in court. If he had been a prosecutor or detective, Bolan would have busted Lucchese's operation anyway, preferring short-term gains to lasting victories. But as it was, he had a different goal in mind. The Executioner was not obliged to prove his case before a jury, satisfying all the rules of evidence, maneuvering among the countless technicalities that made the legal system work halfheartedly at best. His mission was retrieval of Brognola's wife and children, and his modus operandi was the Gianelli squeeze. His other scattered thrusts would have the capo fuming, anxious to retaliate.
Bolan parked his car in a narrow alleyway and shed his topcoat, taking time to double-check his weapons prior to going EVA. He was a shadow gliding through the darkness as he backtracked toward the plug car, moving close enough to make a positive ID of hardmen on the job before his silenced Beretta sent them to eternal sleep.
The lockbox stood before him, undefended. All he had to do was get inside and get back out again. Alive.
He used a compact grappling hook and nylon line to reach the roof, and said a silent prayer of thanks that soundproof insulation worked both ways. As he had expected, there was a skylight, plate glass painted black against the sun and any chance of outside scrutiny. Whoever did the painting, though, had done it from the outside, standing where the soldier stood, and Bolan had no difficulty flaking off a dime-size chip of paint to provide him with a peephole to the room beneath.
An unoccupied bedroom, Spartan in its furnishings. He marked the cot and mattress, straight-backed wooden chairs, a folding table. Access to the room was through a single door and it would be from that direction that the danger would come, if any came at all.
He eased around the skylight, found the location where he figured the latch would be inside, and spent a moment clearing paint away to verify its placement. Pockets of his skinsuit surrendered strapping tape, a slender glass cutter, and the soldier went to work, etching a circle the size of a softball, inserting cautious fingers, feeling all along the sill for an alarm that wasn't there. When he was satisfied, he turned the simple latch and eased back the skylight retrieving rope and grappling hook for his descent.
The Executioner landed like a cat, the mini-Uzi in his hand almost before he had released the nylon line, alert for any sight or sound of danger. He was in, but that was only half the battle — less, if Gianelli had his troops in residence. Somewhere within the lockbox, he would find Lucchese, and the ghoul would take a message back to Gianelli for him, if the Executioner could find a way to spare the bastard's life. If not, well, he would write it off and find some other way to get the message through. It might be worth the extra effort just to see Lucchese die.
Fire and thunder were the ticket now, and Bolan braced himself, prepared to make the move that would begin his sweep — or end it, very suddenly. He threw the door back, glanced both ways along the empty corridor and moved out to his left. There were three doors on either side and at the end of the narrow corridor, a stairwell led down to other chambers and the street.
He tried the first door on his left and found it open. In a carbon-copy bedroom, Bolan stumbled upon a scene that made him feel like retching. He fought the urge to find a tap, wash the faint away. He drew his combat knife and severed the bindings that restrained a teenaged girl to the bed. The other occupant of the room, a gray-haired matron in leather mask and corset, spluttered in protest at the interruption of her "pleasure." Bolan backhanded her across the face and she toppled unconscious to the floor. He helped the former captive to her feet, retrieved a sheet to preserve what was left of her dignity.
"Wait five minutes," Bolan told her, when he had convinced himself that she was not in shock, "then make it to the street. That's left, and down the stairs. You'll have some company by then."
"Okay."
"You've got one chance," he cautioned her. "Don't blow it."
"I won't." He was already moving when she caught her voice and reached out to catch him in the doorway. "Hey... I mean, well, thanks."
The Executioner held up an open palm. "Five minutes."
He moved across the hall and took the next door in a rush, recoiling from the empty room without a break in stride. Three down, and now he realized that none of them were equipped with locks. The customers were paying for their privacy, but there was no way any one of them could barricade himself inside one of the rented rooms, creating sticky problems for Lucchese and his crew.
The next door on the right swung open under Bolan's hand, and one glance made him wonder if there really was a God. A young boy, with a terror-stricken face sat cowering on the bed. His puny arms were raised, body tensed and braced against the descending leather strap held by a middle-aged accountant type. The soldier ripped the man with a burst of automatic fire and left him writhing on the stained linoleum, already crossing to the youth as doors sprang open on the corridor and startled voices babbled their confusion. The cells were not quite soundproof, after all.
"Are you all right?"
It was a foolish question, but the best that he could summon in the circumstances. Shock had drained all color from the young boy's face, and now his pallor showed the welts and bruises off in stark relief. He needed medical attention, but the soldier couldn't interrupt his strike before he found Lucchese, not before he passed the message.
"Can you walk?"
"Uh-huh."
The youth recoiled as Bolan tried to l
ift him from the bed, then gave up, unable to resist effectively. The soldier ripped a sheet in two and wrapped half around the boy, tucking folded ends into his hands. That done, he led the kid outside and back along the corridor until he reached the bedroom occupied by one unconscious woman and one frightened teenage girl.
"It hasn't been five minutes, mister."
"No. I've got somebody for you to look after. He could use a doctor when you're clear."
"Oh, Jesus."
But she took the youth, held him to her like a mother holds her injured child, instinctively.
"I'll get him out okay."
"I know you will. Keep counting."
Now that he had lost the slim advantage of surprise, Bolan merely glanced inside the three remaining rooms, made sure that they were empty, predators and prey abandoning the ship. Downstairs, a fierce commotion had erupted as Lucchese's troops, attempting to investigate the shooting, ran headlong into a stampede of their clientele and captive slaves.
Bolan hit the stairs before the bastards could recover, lining up on the hardman who stepped out to intercept him. The guy was hauling out a pistol from beneath his arm, and a 3-round burst was all it took to shred his face, the corpse preceding Bolan in an awkward tumble down the stairs, upending stragglers and dumping all together in a tangle on the bottom landing.
He spied Lucchese in an instant, flanked by two more gunners and surrounded by perhaps a dozen customers. They were all jostling for the door in varied stages of undress. The thugs were shouting, trying desperately to separate their human merchandise from patrons, having trouble with it now that all had been reduced to their birthday suits. He saw Lucchese tangle fingers in a young girl's hair and drop her with a hard right cross. The backup gunners had their hands full with a pair of wiry youths who looked like twins, intent on breaking for the exit.
Bolan switched the mini-Uzi to his left hand and hauled out Big Thunder with his right. He let the little stutter gun unload at 700 rounds per minute, riddling the insulated walls and ceiling, showering the room with glass from overhead fluorescent fixtures. Below, Lucchese and his guns reacted as they should, releasing captives, digging for their hardware even as they sought a living target, and the moment gave Bolan all the edge that he required.
The AutoMag slid out to full extension, locking on the nearest target, bucking once and moving on. Downrange, 240 grains of death impacted on the torpedo's nose and punched on through, collapsing cheeks and chin like so much tissue paper, blowing him away.
Before the thunder had a chance to fade, round two was hurtling toward impact with the second gunner's forehead. The gunner vaulted backward and slithered out of range.
Lucchese had his .45 in hand, but Bolan wanted him alive. Round three ripped through the child molester's shoulder, separating his right arm from its socket in a sloppy bit of surgery. Staggered by the impact, Lucchese would have fallen, but Bolan couldn't let the bastard go. Another screaming .44 impacted on his kneecap, detonating bone and muscle, ripping tendons from their moorings. The guy sat down, the bloody ruin of his leg tucked underneath him.
They were alone, the tiny lobby empty now. The Executioner approached Lucchese, crouched beside him. Fear and agony were mingled in the mobster's eyes, and unaccustomed tears were etching tracks across his cheeks.
"I call the cops in fifteen minutes, Gerry. You could crawl a block by then, or maybe two, if you've got the guts."
And through the pain, a latent trace of curiosity survived.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the guy who could've blown your head off, Gerry. Maybe next time, eh? Right now, I've got a job for you to do."
"A job?"
"Tell Nicky that I want the package back. Tonight. If it's been damaged, he can kiss his life goodbye."
"The package?"
"Tell him, Gerry. Next time I might aim a little higher."
Bolan jammed the muzzle of his AutoMag against Lucchese's groin and twisted, satisfied with the impression that it made. He left the bastard there, to drag himself away as best he could, secure that Gianelli would receive his message. If Lucchese died, it wouldn't matter in the long run. Bolan's destruction of the lockbox would be instantly connected with the other strikes, and Nicky G. would get the message, loud and clear.
The soldier had another call to make before he touched base with Brognola, this time on the other side. Before he rattled any more cages, Bolan wanted to assess the "evidence" against Brognola, slip the pieces into place and look for any gaps he might exploit. And he already had a source in mind.
Let Gianelli stew for now, devouring his own insides with questions that he could not hope to answer on his own. The Executioner had other business in the seat of government, and he was moving on.
To Justice.
He meant to see if any still survived.
13
Cameron Cartwright killed the Porsche's engine, listening to it tick for several moments as it cooled in the night. It was not cold outside, but he could feel the gooseflesh rising on his arms, betraying agitation as it did each time he was compelled to meet with Gianelli. So much at risk, so much to lose, and still he had no choice. When Gianelli called a meeting, Cartwright would be there with hat in hand.
It galled him, catering to common criminals this way, but, then again, there had been nothing common in the threat from Gianelli. At a single stroke, the mafioso could erase a quarter century of faithful service to the government, leave Cartwright's long career at the CIA in smoking ruins. Gianelli could destroy him if he chose to, and until he found a way to break the mobster's stranglehold, Cartwright was at his beck and call.
The Watergate Hotel provided anonymity, though Cartwright scarcely would have chosen it with tight security in mind. He still remembered Hunt and Liddy, the deliberate shambles of a burglary, the months of hearings that had toppled Nixon. It had been a foolish stunt from the beginning, amateurish, pointless, and the analysts at the CIA had recognized a shaky hand behind the half-baked plot. It wasn't burglary that put them off, but rather wasted effort, risking personnel to gather information that was readily available from countless other outlets. Farnsworth had been quick to sense the shifting winds and, with Cartwright's help, had moved to blow the silly scheme wide open. They had weathered out the shitstorm side by side, emerging with the scent of roses while so many others fell around them.
Even Gianelli didn't know of Cartwright's secret meetings with Bob Woodward, from the Post, although the mobster might have guessed that Cameron's sense of humor, coupled with his fondness for pornography, had prompted him to choose the contact code name of Deep Throat.
So long ago, but he could not approach the Watergate, could not drive by it in the Company's armored limousine without the images and memories returning, just as if it all had happened yesterday. You're getting old, he thought, and knew it wasn't true. Still vigorous at fifty-one, the CIA agent could hold his own against the best — he'd proved that much when he outlived Lee Farnsworth — but the carelessness of others placed him under Nicky Gianelli's thumb, and Cartwright ruminated constantly on methods of escape. If it had not required such careful planning, so damned much finesse...
As always, he had parked the Porsche himself, avoiding the valets who might remember faces, license plates, if anyone should ask about him later. Cartwright's passion for selective anonymity had marked him as a bit of an eccentric with the Agency, so many years beyond his final field assignment, but the up-and-coming staffers had no inkling of his background, everything he stood to lose through indiscretion and exposure.
In the wake of Farnsworth's death, the bloody business in Virginia, he had spent a frenzied weekend purging records, reaching back across the years to Southeast Asia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, shredding anything and everything that might incriminate him. It was simpler now than in the old days, with computers to assist him in the search, and Cartwright hadn't missed a thing — except for Gianelli's copies, secretly collected since the sixties, stored a
gainst the day when Nicky needed extra weight to throw around in Washington. The bastard had it all, in triplicate, complete with names and dates, securely tucked away where Cartwright couldn't reach it.
Yet.
A quarter-century in the clandestine services had taught him that no secret was eternally secure. It had only taken one professor to reveal the Pentagon's most treasured secrets in the early seventies, and whistle-blowers were a dime a dozen in official Washington. The kind of information Cartwright needed from inside the syndicate would be more difficult to come by, but where there was a will...
The doorman nodded courteously to the suit, ignoring Cartwright's face. The man had seen him here before as he saw thousands every night five days a week, but Cartwright worked at leaving no impression on the minds of strangers and remote subordinates. He fit "the type" that would be calling on the Watergate for business meetings of an evening: three-piece suit; salt-and-pepper hair, now mostly gray around the temples; wing-tip shoes. He was unarmed and had not carried guns with any regularity in a dozen years. But there were times like now when he still missed the reassuring weight beneath his arm. Its absence caused a pang, like sending a favorite child off to college in the fall or breaking with a mistress who had been particularly skilled.
The danger lay within connections, and he hoped to break the link with Gianelli soon, perhaps when they were finished with the current project. In the meantime he was on for the duration, and there was no viable alternative to absolute success.
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